April
12, 2004
Today is the day to get a starlicious makeover.
The BYT Gives You Spiritual Advice, Even When the Candy-Related Holidays Are Over
Dear BYT,
I've been going to temples, churches, synagogues, mosques, and places for years and have found myself troubled with the lack of spiritual direction. It seems as if nothing feels definitive or can be accepted as a definitive truth. What's up with that?
Welcome to the club. Spiritual direction, or faith, is not easy.
Now, by lack of spiritual direction, you seem to mean two different, but related, things. On the one hand, the religious places you go seem to lack spiritual direction. On the other hand, you seem to lack spiritual direction. Both are possibly true, although in my experience most religious institutions have fairly well-established directions, the spirituality of which is usually more or less stomach-able, depending on your own leanings and yearnings-political, social, religious and otherwise.
Of course, if you are looking for a single spiritual direction in a church, a synagogue, mosque, etc., etc, you will be disappointed. Even among Christian denominations, the range of beliefs is vast. Jews have Reform, Conservative and Orthodox varieties, with a whole slew of gradations within those designations. Muslims, too: Sunnis, Shiites, Nation of Islam. Religious groups are known to be schismatic; even the very agreeable Quakers have split before.
Still, it might be said that the key to all the world's major faiths-at least in terms of their stated spiritual direction, if not always their practices-is compassion. Karen Armstrong, a former nun turned religious scholar, claims that compassion is the most important virtue "across the board," and that which makes Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity "profoundly similar." If you are looking for spiritual direction, I recommend starting there, with compassion, the imaginative process (a real-life leap of faith) of being with (con-) others in their pain (passion).
Now, practically speaking, you may run into trouble for a few reasons if you continue your religious searching in the way you describe.
Trouble #1: Despite their many, many claims to the contrary, religious groups are not always so good at compassion. For evidence, we need look no further than a history of holy wars (fought on all fronts, past and present) and religiously-sanctioned discrimination, or the regular claims that my God is better than your God, or that I know better than you, and that you should believe what I believe, or else! Armstrong notes, and I agree, that this spiritual direction is all egotism. "A lot of people see God as a sacred seal of approval on some of their worst fantasies about other people." Compassion is antithetical to egotism by definition, since compassion demands that we step out of ourselves and imagine the condition of someone else.
Trouble #2: You are looking for definitive truth (Truth). While many religious groups claim to know the Truth, it's only by their egotism that any of them can really believe they do. See above re my God being better than your God, and my knowing better than you. Such belief, when expressed through action, tends to be uncompassionate, and often violent or oppressive, enslaving and infantilizing. Given the variety of God's creation, the expression of God must be equally various.
Trouble #3: You seem impatient, and as a result are all over the place. Take the advice of my late stepfather: Patience is a blessed virtue, he used to say. Slow down. While houses of worship are by no means perfect (please don't expect perfection from any human institution, but always believe in reforming them), they are very often quiet, wonderful places to reflect and pray and learn. Pay attention to something long enough to understand what good it has to offer. Listen to the religious leaders; meet and listen to the people. You'll find many of them (the religious and laity alike) to be as confused and lacking in direction as you are. Belong as much as you can; dissent where you need to, and express your dissent. Struggle with the people all around you.
Faith in God is not the possession of a single spiritual direction or exclusive, definitive truth, but the often difficult, and on-going process of learning to believe, to pray and to love that which is outside ourselves and beyond easy definition. Faith means swapping egotism for compassion.
Have a question about what if God was one of us, just a slob riding on the
bus? Ask the BYT.